Bradley partner Robert Maddox elected American Bar Foundation Fellow
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is pleased to announce that Robert Maddox, a partner in the firm’s Birmingham office, has been elected as a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABF). “We congratulate Robert on his acceptance as a Fellow with the prestigious American Bar Foundation,” stated Bradley Birmingham Office Managing Partner Dawn Helms Sharff. “As a nationally recognized practitioner, Robert is well deserving of this honor for his work and leadership at our firm and in the broader legal community.” Maddox is the practice group chair of Bradley’s 90+ attorney Banking & Financial Services Practice Group. In the past decade, he has handled more national/multi-state state attorneys general investigations and related consent judgments than any other attorney in the United States. He also is a regular speaker at national real estate programs, banking, and financial services industry conferences. Maddox is a faculty fellow and teaches real estate law and regulatory compliance for the School of Mortgage Banking. In addition, he taught classes at the University of Alabama School of Law on real estate finance and development and state constitutional law, as well as continues to teach classes on consumer finance and enforcement, real property finance and security, and corporate governance as an adjunct professor at the Cumberland School of Law. The ABF Fellows is an honorary society of attorneys, judges, law faculty, and legal scholars whose careers have demonstrated dedication to the highest principles of the legal profession and to the welfare of the communities. Only 1 percent of lawyers licensed to practice in each jurisdiction gain Membership in the Fellows. ABF was founded in 1952. It is an independent, nonprofit organization that seeks to advance the understanding and improvement of law through research projects of unmatched scale and quality on the most pressing issues facing the legal system in the United States and the world.
Shortages of supplies and workers will delay Gulf rebuilding
Joe Sobol, owner of Big Easy Construction in New Orleans, has bad news for homeowners who’ve been calling about roofs damaged by Hurricane Ida or to get an update on renovations that were scheduled before the storm ripped through the area. The job will cost a lot more than usual — and take much longer, too. Ida slammed into the Gulf Coast — then took its destruction to the Northeast — at a time when building contractors were already grappling with severe shortages of workers and depleted supply chains. The damage inflicted by Ida has magnified those challenges. The struggle to find enough skilled workers and materials will likely drive up costs, complicate planning and delay reconstruction for months. “My expectation,” said Ali Wolf, chief economist at the real estate research firm Zonda, “is that it only gets worse from here.” Consider that Lake Charles, Louisiana, 200 miles west of New Orleans, still hasn’t recovered from the damage left when Hurricane Laura tore through the area a year ago. The challenges facing construction companies stem from what happened after the nation endured a brutal but brief recession when the viral pandemic erupted in March 2020: The economy rebounded far faster and stronger than anyone expected. Businesses of all kinds were caught off-guard by a surge in customer demand that flowed from an increasingly robust economic recovery. Workers and supplies were suddenly in short supply. For months now across the economy, businesses have been scrambling to acquire enough supplies, restock their shelves, and recall workers they had furloughed during the recession. Construction companies have been particularly affected. Among building executives Zonda surveyed last month, 93% complained of supply shortages. Seventy-four percent said they lacked enough workers. And that was before Ida struck. “Natural disasters do cause a strain on building materials, reconstruction materials, and on labor,” Wolf said. “The difference today is that the entire supply chain has been battered even before Ida’s occurrence. You really have all these things hitting at the exact same time. Frankly, the last thing the supply chain needed was extra strain.” A result is that the cost of materials and supplies has been surging. Combined prices for windows, doors, roofing, and other building products jumped 13% in the first six months of this year, according to Labor Department data. Before 2020, by contrast, such aggregate prices would typically rise a bit more than 1% annually, on average, in the first six months of a year. Prices for steel mill products were up more than twofold in July from a year earlier. Gypsum products, which are needed for drywall, partitions, ceiling tiles, and the like, were up 22%. Henry D’Esposito, who leads construction research at the real estate services company JLL, said the toughest challenge in rebuilding now is the delays in acquiring drywall, glass, steel, aluminum, and other materials. “A lot of the materials that you would need for any project and especially something this urgent — you’re not able to get on-site for weeks or months,” D’Esposito said. Sobol, in the course of his career, has ridden out some of the biggest hurricanes to strike Louisiana, including Betsy in 1965, Camille in 1979, Katrina in 2005, and Ida last week. On Friday, he received a text from a client who had hired Big Easy for home renovations. The client wanted to know whether the initial cost estimate still stood. “I said, ‘You can probably add 10%,’ “Sobol said. And now, the project will likely take nine months instead of six. “We’re having to jump through hoops,” said Robert Maddox, owner of Hahn Roofing in Boyce, Louisiana, 200 miles northwest of New Orleans. “We’re having to pay more for labor. We’re having to pay more for supplies. We’re having to bring supplies in.” The insurance companies that are footing the bill for many of the hurricane repairs, Maddox said, can pose an additional burden. “I’ve spent more time fighting with insurance companies over prices than I did roofing houses,” he said. Jacob Hodges, co-owner of a family roofing business in Houma, Louisiana, complains that shingles are in such short supply that it’s hard to buy them in the same color consistently. One day, they’re available only in black; the next day, only gray. Hodges takes what he can get. So do his customers, who are desperate to have their roofs patched up or replaced after the storm. Then there’s the labor shortage. Among workers in short supply are framers, who build, install and maintain foundations, floors, and door and window frames; carpenters; electricians; plumbers; and heating and air-conditioning specialists. “Workers — they have the power,” said Wolf, the economist at Zonda. “They can go where they can make the most money. So if you need access to workers, you’re going to have to pony up.’’ Maddox said typical pay for roofers has soared 20% over the past year or so. Some can earn $400 a day. “If you don’t pay them,” he said, “someone else will.’’ In normal times, demand for their services was so uneven that roofers often split their time working for different contractors. “Now, we all need them,” Hodges said. Making matters worse, the power is still out in many places, gasoline is in short supply, and the Gulf Coast weather is sweltering. With nowhere to stay, workers involved in reconstruction have to drive in from afar. Maddox said he has roofers commuting in from Lake Charles, a three-hour drive from the hurricane zone. “We’re losing half our time driving,” he said. He wishes that hotels that have running water would reopen — even without electricity — so that workers would have a place to stay. “Those guys don’t mind cold showers,” he said. Weighing the magnitude of the hurricane damage against the shortage of supplies and workers, Hodges envisions a prolonged, grinding period of reconstruction from Ida. “To get everything back like it was,” he said, “you’re talking … well, we’ll probably be working on this this time next year.”
